Wednesday March 27

There are reasons to think he might, maybe, get to play in the round-one team. Nick Vlastuin keeps running through them in his head.

He has played in all of the pre-season games but one, and he only missed that match because he needed a rest. He hasn’t asked the coaches whether he has been doing all the things they want to see him doing, but they haven’t brought anything up, or given him any reason to think he isn’t on the right track. At a press conference yesterday Damien Hardwick was asked whether he would play and the coach said he was “thereabouts,” which made Nick wonder whether he was closer to being in, or closer to being out.

It’s hard to know because he has never not been in a team before; he’s never not been one of the first few players picked. That’s why he was a top 10 draft pick, why he is so close to becoming a real life AFL player. But he has never tried to get into the same side as Trent Cotchin, Brett Deledio, Jack Riewoldt or Dustin Martin, not to mention every other Richmond player. These guys are good, they’ve been in the team for years and Nick doesn’t know how to have a proper conversation with them, let alone think of himself as one of them. He really wants to play. He doesn’t want to wait. It would be the best thing ever, if he got to play, but it’s not up to him.

Nick waited a long time to get drafted – years, months, weeks, hours, minutes – and when it happened, it happened so quickly. Two seconds was all it took for the Richmond recruiting manager to call his name at No.9 – Player 213659, Nick Vlastuin, Northern Knights – and before he could take it in he was standing on stage at the Gold Coast convention centre on draft night, posing for a photo with his new coach, clutching his black and yellow jumper. Less than an hour after that he was in another room, at a supporter’s function, signing autographs for the first time in his life, talking to people he had never met, who seemed to know so much about him.

It was strange, but it was what he had always wanted, the only thing he had ever hoped to do, even though he only started playing the game because of his mother’s frustration, or even her desperation. Nick can be quiet. He’s not shy, but he’s not a big talker; he prefers to take things in. But as a kid, he was nowhere near as subdued. He broke $800 of glass in one year, he sent his brother and sister scrambling for safety of the “time out” room when it was him who had been causing trouble, and when he was 15 months old his mother named him Tigger, after Winnie the Pooh’s boisterous, bouncy friend: he had red hair, and the energy to match.

“Doesn’t complain when he falls over or is pushed, just bounces back up again,” Cecily wrote in her diary at the time, not knowing the name would stick, 18 years later. “Unfortunately, he expects others to do the same.”

Nick didn’t know how to calm down. He didn’t seem to want to. When he was four he thumped a stick against a door made of safety glass so many times that he smashed it, and Cecily decided it was time to seek some advice on surviving him, and whether he might be ready for school.

The local paediatrician thought he was, and had one other idea. Cecily knew little about football and neither did Nick’s father: Chris was born in Dutch New Guinea, and both he and Cecily had grown up in New South Wales, moving to Melbourne for work. But as it turned out, the doctor she took Nick to see coached the local Auskick side and suggested it might be a good place for the little boy to wear himself out and use up his aggression.

It was. There, he was allowed to throw people to the ground, to wrestle and fight and knock other kids over. He took to it, quickly. He loved it. He was drafted by Richmond because he doesn’t want to let anything, or any other player, get to the ball before he does.

Nick considered every scenario before his family flew to Queensland for the draft. He thought about it for months – not every day, but the thoughts were hard to stop flickering and it didn’t help that he had finished Year 12 at the end of 2011 and that his “distraction”, a lifesaving job at a swimming centre near home in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, didn’t come up until late in 2012.

He knew that if he was chosen before pick nine there was a good chance he’d have to move: interstate sides held four of the first eight choices. He knew that if Richmond didn’t take him at No.9, he could end up playing for Gold Coast, the Giants or Fremantle, clubs which were picking not long after the Tigers.

He tried to prepare himself for the possibility that he would have to move – where would he live? Who would he live with? What would he cook? How would he cook? – because if it did happen he wanted to be ready. As it turns out he is living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed, relying on his mum to do his washing and have dinner waiting each night. It’s meant having much less to get used to than some of his friends who were drafted to interstate sides and not having to say goodbye to people, though he sometimes wonders how good it would have been to move out of home: Richmond’s other draftees are living with each other, in a house set up by the club. They drive to and from training together, cook together, go out together. They bought a ping pong table together. They have fun. Then again, they never seem to have any money. Nick’s still living off last year’s savings.

“It would have been exciting to move, I think. But then it would have worn off and everything would probably have taken longer to get used to. I pretty much got drafted by the closest club to my house, so I’m lucky. I’d probably thought about that happening less than I thought about moving.”

SA U/18 Vs Vic Metro U/18 – 16/6/2012

Game Rating: 7/10

Draft Rating: Definite 1st Round

Rated Position: Inside Midfielder

Alternate Rated Position: Rebounding Defender

Strengths

Nick led from the front and stood tall when the game was on the line.

His contested footy was a feature of his game. He is a brave, tough and determined player who was fearless at times.

He went back hard in a few marking contests when out of position and managed to spoil his opponent. His last quarter spoil was outstanding as he clearly knew he was going to get smashed. His disposal skills were quite good as he set up a few scoring opportunities with good decision making and excellent skill execution.

His handball under pressure was terrific and I recall at least 3 very long creative handballs that cleared congestion.

His marking was sound and he can be relied upon to keep his eyes on the footy at all times. He is unconditional in his attack on the footy.

Weaknesses

He was hit up on the lead by Murdoch 3 times on long leads. Starting positions poor particularly against such a quick opponent.

He fumbled a crucial ground ball which was costly.

He lacked agility when he needed to turn quickly enabling his opponent to get goal side.

Comments

Showed great leadership and stood tall when the game was slipping from Vic Metro’s grasp. His physicality and grunt were very impressive and his contested footy is outstanding. His tackling is fierce and his handball skills are terrific. At times he enabled his opponent to hit up on him and his intensity can drop off when fatigued.

Gippsland Power Vs Northern Knights – 25/8/2012

Game Rating: 8/10

Draft Rating: Definite 1st Round

Rated Position: Inside Midfielder

Alt Rated Position: Rebounding Defender

Strengths

Nick had more possessions than usual in very difficult windy conditions. He spent 5-6 minutes on ball and the rest of the quarter at half forward. He won a high percentage of contested footy and rarely lost a contest. His physical tackling was a feature of his play and his clearance work was also very good. He used his power and speed to break away from congestion a few times before driving the footy inside 50. He kicked 2 goals, one where he read the ball in flight very well in the wind to mark and play on converting from 25. His second goal was from a lead at a crucial stage in the last quarter from 45 where he allowed for the very strong breeze to put the Knights in front. He was creative with his hands and set up a few inside 50s by releasing a team mate in space. His disposal efficiency was impressive in very blustery conditions and his decision making sound. He hit up Corr on the lead in the last quarter displaying good vision in traffic. Nick stood up in the last quarter winning two clearances in the last few minutes and also laying some very important tackles.

Weaknesses

Only 5 handball receives once again highlights his lack of run and ability or willingness to run to multiple contests. Far too much walking between plays and spends time out of play. Dropped two tough contested overheads in very difficult conditions.

Comments

Nick had a major influence in the game with his strong attack on the footy and his skill. He has so much upside by increasing his running capability and using his considerable skill more often. Very unlucky not to pull his team over the line with a 10 possession last quarter.

Nick recognised most of what he saw, when he started at Richmond three days after the draft. He knew what the training drills would look like, he knew there would be meetings, he knew the days would be long. He’d spent two years in the AIS-AFL Academy program and the things he learnt there, as well as playing for Vic Metro and through friends who had already been drafted, meant he wasn’t thrown by the huge, sudden step-up.

What he didn’t understand entirely was how much of everything there would be. He didn’t just have to weigh himself, he had to weigh himself every single morning, and have his body fat measured every second week. There wasn’t one training session per day, but several: on the track, then in the gym, then on the yoga mats.

There were no games for his first four months at the club, but that meant almost every training session was recorded, watched back and reviewed, as if it was a game. There were no days off and the days were long, and a little stressful. Nick set two alarms each morning: you don’t want to be late to work when you’re one of the new kids. If he had to be at the club by 9.30am he’d leave home before seven: you really don’t want to be late when you’re the new kid.

He felt like an instant adult in some ways – expected to get himself places, to organise himself – and he was used to playing in teams where everyone was the same age, so it was hard to know what to talk to his much older teammates about. At times it was impossible to think of something mildly intelligent to say, so he didn’t bother: rooming with Trent Cotchin on a training camp in Cairns the week after the draft Nick barely said a word, though he did try and peek inside his bag, to see what AFL captains packed for trips like that.

He knew he needed to win everyone over, to prove himself, but he wasn’t sure how to do that until he’d actually done it. Paired with the feisty Steve Morris, a player who had waited until he was 23 to get his first chance, for a series of one-on-one contests, Nick won the first two and was slung to the ground for his trouble. Instinctively he jumped back up, turned and took his teammate on. It was only the second week of pre-season training. The other players noticed; they had been told this kid was competitive, and now they knew.

“If anyone does that to you in a game,” Steve told Nick, “do exactly what you did to me just then.”

It was an exhausting few months, physically. Getting up early wasn’t hard, but Nick arrived home feeling tired almost every single afternoon. He’d walk through the door, eat his “first dinner”, nap for a while then get up, eat a “second dinner” and go straight back to sleep. He was so tired he didn’t want to talk so he made a rule: his mum was only allowed to ask two questions about his day, and “What time will you be home?” counted as one of them, much to her consternation.

“I can’t remember ever being so tired in my life,” Nick said. “My body wasn’t used to it, so it had no idea what to do. For the first couple of months all I could do was eat and sleep – eat, sleep and train. And I was sore. My body just hurt, all the time.”

That got better. Slowly, he adapted, and there were mornings when the conditioning coach looked at him, told him he looked tired and sent him and the other first-year players home to sit on the couch for a day, which also helped.

There was so much to think about, learn and take in. There wasn’t one game plan to memorise, there were multiple versions of it, depending on which team the Tigers were playing, whether they were up or down, where the ball was on the ground, where he was on the ground. It was taking a lot of time to sink in, and by the end of the pre-season not much of it felt instinctive to Nick.

He knew who to look for when he wasn’t quite sure where he was meant to be or what he was meant to be doing – Jack Riewoldt, if he was in the forward line, Cotchin and Deledio when he was in the middle – and when he wasn’t sure he just put his head down and went after the ball. He felt sure it would start coming to him more naturally. He just wasn’t sure how long it would take.

Nick hoped that wouldn’t matter this week. And it didn’t, but he wasn’t going to play. “You’ve only just missed out,” said Hardwick, stopping him in a hallway after training on Wednesday afternoon. “I really wanted to play you, but we can’t squeeze everyone in. You’ve done everything right. Keep going.”

Friday April 26

The first thing Nick noticed was how everyone knew exactly what they wanted to do, how quickly and quietly they settled into the match-eve routines he had not had a chance to see until the Richmond players arrived in Perth on Thursday afternoon ahead of their round-five game against Fremantle.

It started the second they stepped off the plane: headphones were wrapped around ears, drink bottles were brought out and almost all of the chatter stopped, just like that. Nick hadn’t stopped to think where he would sit on the bus from the airport to the hotel or who he would eat dinner with, let alone whether he should have packed his own pillow. He had no habits at all, really, and no superstitions, which turned out to be a good thing. He didn’t want to sit in anyone’s seat, disrupt their preparation or get in their way in the rooms before the game. He wanted to watch what Deledio, Cotchin and everyone else did, to get some ideas without needing to ask any unnecessary questions.

The one thing he made sure to do was what Jake King grabbed him before the game to recommend: take a long look around Subiaco during the first warm-up, get used to the noise and the number of people, rather than run back out into a stadium filled with Docker supporters, feel overwhelmed and forget what he was there to do. It was a good tip, but even though Nick knew he deserved his spot in the team he had no idea what sort of difference he could make.

“You look around at some of the other players in the team,” he said, “and you think, it doesn’t even really matter what I do, because whatever I do, how could someone like me affect the outcome?”

Nick wasn’t sure, after missing the round-one side, when he would get his chance. It was a question he couldn’t answer, though that didn’t stop him thinking about it, starting every Monday morning. Richmond beat Carlton by five points in round one and had won two of its next three games. The team was settled, most players were playing well and Nick had been an emergency every week, meaning that he had played just one half of VFL footy in the first three rounds before sitting out last week’s game entirely, just in case he was needed.

The first week he was an emergency, he prepared as if he was playing. He read the opposition notes over and over and watched all the vision on potential opponents that the club’s development coach, Mark Williams, had picked out for him. He ate some pasta, went to bed early, got to the MCG more than an hour before he was meant to be there and sat around, doing nothing, not getting the late call-up he had known was extremely unlikely.

“I didn’t know what was normal to do, because I’d never played in the AFL and I’d never been an emergency. I had no idea at all,” he said. “I just hung around, waited until the players ran out and then ate all their food and went upstairs to watch. I kept preparing well after that, but not as much as I did for round one. I thought about the game a bit too much, the first week. It did my head in a bit.”

Nick didn’t think he had much chance of making the round-five side, either. The game was in Perth, against a really good team, and he didn’t think the coaches would want him to play for the first time so far from home. Not even the one-match suspension given to Steve Morris after the round-four loss to Collingwood had encouraged him – surely they would bring in another defender? – but Nick was lying on a massage table late on Wednesday morning when Hardwick called his mobile phone.

His first instinct was to hope he’d done nothing wrong. His next thought was that this was a bit unusual, that Hardwick had waited until he saw him around the club to tell him when he hadn’t been picked to play. His third thought was to answer, and he acted upon that one in a hurry. Two minutes later his massage was on hold and he was in the coach’s office getting the news he had been waiting for, hoping would come. He was going to play his first game.

“He just said congratulations. He said ‘you’re in, and we’re all looking forward to seeing you do what you can do,” Nick said. “And I think all I did was stand there and smile. I couldn’t really speak. I didn’t know how it worked, how they would tell you and when they would tell you, but I’d been looking forward to it, hoping for it a lot. All I could think to say was thanks.”

From there, it was straight back for the rest of the massage, to start sending text messages, to let everyone know. It was happening.

Nick started on the bench against Fremantle, but was there only two or three minutes. He made his way towards the forward line, spoiled a ball and was still feeling good about that when the ball was passed to him and he grabbed it, then shot a quick handball out to Dustin Martin. First possession: tick. From there, he laid a few tackles and began to feel like he was involved, a part of what was going on.

There were a lot of stoppages, more than he thought there would be, so the game didn’t feel as quick as people had told him it would be, although every other player looked bigger than he was used to, seemed stronger and was harder to hold onto in a tackle. What it did feel was cleaner than any other game he had played in – barely any mistakes were made and the ball was hardly ever turned over, which meant a whole lot of running for little reward – and it wasn’t until he was out on the ground, trying to not only remember every little bit of the game plan but implement it, that Nick realised how much of it was yet to be fully implanted in his brain.

He knew which of his teammates would watch out for him, and made sure to look for them. He remembered what Hardwick had told him – don’t worry if you stuff up – and it wasn’t until the team watched the game back a few days later that he realised he had been standing in the wrong spot at a throw-in late in the last quarter, allowing Hayden Ballantyne room to scoot through a crowded pack and snap a goal that put the Dockers one point up with 84 seconds left. That was the final margin. Nick wasn’t sure who else noticed, and none of the coaches said anything to him about it. But he saw it, he knew, and it wasn’t a good feeling.

“One of the forwards needed to be back behind the stoppage, exactly where he ran in. I don’t know why I didn’t do it,” he said. “I sort of blame myself for us losing that game.”

The loss hurt. It sucked all the excitement from him, or most of it, at least. It meant there could be no more anticipation, that his first-game script had been written and his team didn’t win. It meant he started wondering whether he had done enough, whether he could have done more, whether he would get another game, whether he would get this many corkies every week. It meant he had to stop wandering, to realise how quickly things kept moving.

There was a flight home on Saturday, a recovery session on Sunday, another training session on Monday, a new game to start getting ready for. There was no time to stop, no time to think about what had just happened even though he had waited so long for it, because all of a sudden it didn’t matter any more, at least not as much as what had to happen next.

Nick had one other thing on his mind than the next game, though. He’s not exactly sure how it happened, but early in the second quarter against Fremantle he dislocated a pinky finger while reaching down for the ball. He stayed on the ground for another few minutes, glancing down at it and thinking “that looks weird” before heading to the bench to have the doctor clunk it back into place. From there it was difficult to bend the finger and to keep it out of his mind, though he did his best not to let anyone else notice and to concentrate only on getting the ball.

It wasn’t until the half-time break that his finger started to swell, throb and need some strapping, and it was harder to handle the ball after that. It hurt all the way home but he didn’t tell anyone he didn’t need to tell, and he kept quiet the next week too – even when it got twisted during a tackle bag drill, even though it kept popping out and he had to start marking one-handed.

“You can’t play your first game then go out injured with a pinky finger. There’s just no way you could have a week off with that. It wouldn’t be the best look,” said Nick, who started wondering almost as soon as the game finished whether he would get a second one. Morris was due back and so was Troy Chaplin. Shane Tuck was due for a game and the team had just lost.

“You start thinking, it won’t be that guy who goes out, it won’t be that guy and it won’t be that guy,” he said. “You think, maybe it will be me.”

Wednesday July 24

The best thing about surfing is that when you’re paddling through freezing cold water in the middle of winter, wondering where the next wave will appear from, it’s impossible to think about how much your legs hurt, or why you’re not playing as well as you were, or what you can do to make sure you don’t get dropped.

Nick loves being out there on his own, emptying his mind and forgetting about football for an hour or two. He grew up in the suburbs but would live by the beach if he could: as a kid he spent almost every Christmas on the New South Wales mid-north coast with his extended family, leaving the day after the school year finished and getting home the day before the next one began. He started coming to Torquay because one of his high school friends had a house here, but drove down last night with his girlfriend Georgia, a local, who combines work as a surfing coach with a criminology course in Melbourne.

Nick met her at the end of pre-season, when Mark Williams took a group of young players down for a lesson, then nudged Nick at the end and told him to get over there and introduce himself. “Take the chance,” he told the teenager, quoting Matt Damon’s character from the movie We Bought a Zoo. “Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. Literally just 20 seconds of embarrassing bravery, and I promise you something great will come of it.”

Nick took his advice, headed over, and asked her out for a coffee. They’ve been together, officially, for the last six weeks or so, and it’s been good. Good to have someone to talk to about things that aren’t football, and good to have someone to hang out at home with. Nick doesn’t see his friends as much as he used to, and is starting to feel like he has a little less in common with some of them, like they might have started to drift apart. Most of them are working or studying, on completely different timetables to him. Some of them have headed overseas on a Contiki trip; they’re uploading photos to Facebook every day, it looks like fun and he knows that if things go to plan, he won’t get to see a European summer for a while.

When they’re shooting basketballs or kicking a soccer ball around there’s no point in him being there, because he needs to save his legs for things to do with football. They can stay out late and have big nights even if they’re working the next day, and he can’t, so they have stories he can never feel a part of, having headed home early to bed.

“You do sort of drift away a bit. When they go out and have fun you’re busy, and when you can relax they’re at work. I’ve definitely noticed that, that I see a lot of people less. It’s just too hard, sometimes. By the time they’re getting a bit rowdy and heading out I’m drinking water and winding down and going home to sleep because I have to train the next day or play the next day. And there’s no way you could even contemplate going out if you’ve got training. That’s the hard choice, but it’s not even really all that hard. I’d much rather be doing this.”

That he has never needed to question why Georgia wants to know him has been nice, too. It’s hard to meet new people when you have to be so disciplined, when you have to train so hard and be home so early. It’s hard to know what to make of some people, when they know what you do for a living before they actually know you.

“That’s the weird thing that happens. People see you as a footy player, so when you do get to go out they want to hang around you, but you can tell they don’t really care who are you, if that makes sense. All they want to talk about is footy, footy, footy and if I do get to go out I kinda want to get away from that. There’s a lot of people who want to be your friend, and you’re not all that sure what they’re after.”

Nick thought he was sore back in summer. He thought his legs hurt after his first few pre-season games. He’s less tired than he was, in those long first few weeks. But he wakes up sore after every single game now, a little more achy each week. He’s having to think about what he should push through, and what he should probably tell one of the physios about, what the difference between tight and tired and injured is.

Training doesn’t stop and there’s no pause button that would give him time to catch up, just more core work, extra touch sessions, yoga, more ice baths than he has ever sat in before. Like the other players, he has to not only think about how his hamstrings, calves, Achilles, groins, lower back and motivation levels feel every morning, but punch all those thoughts into a computer so that the conditioning coaches can look through it and know who they need to talk to, about what.

He knows there’s no point lying about anything, because the coaches will be able to tell if he’s hurting anyway. He knows that sometimes he actually does need a break, to be pulled out of a few drills or go home a little early. He wants to do all that he can, it’s just figuring out what that is that takes time, as well as some self-awareness.

“Being in my first year, I kind of want to push through everything,” he said. “I don’t want to ask for a rest, but when you’re forced to take one you appreciate it a lot. You know you need it, you just don’t want to be the one who asks.”

He had no choice, after round 13. Nick had just two kicks against the Western Bulldogs, but that was the least of his problems. He could barely walk after the game because when he tackled a player early in the third quarter he felt his lower leg twist, bend , and start to hurt straight away. He knew he was hobbling, that it must be obvious, but he didn’t want to say too much or ask to be subbed out of the game, even though it was on his mind.

“Every time I went to the bench I kept saying I was fine. I was trying to walk normally and not show anyone how much pain I was in. I wanted to hide it as much as I could because I thought they’d sub me off, but then they subbed off someone else and I got a bit dirty about it. I actually did want to get subbed, because it hurt so much, I just didn’t want to ask. I was kinda hoping they’d just do it.”

Back on the ground Nick couldn’t really run, could barely change direction without making himself hurt. It meant he spent the rest of the day in the forward line, running away from where the ball was headed so that, at the very least, his opponent didn’t get near it. He had half a thought that his leg might be broken – he didn’t know what broken legs looked or felt like, except for the really gruesome ones, so it was impossible to know for sure – but he had scans two days later and the doctor called him in with good news: his shin was just badly bruised.

It was a relief, but he knew it was going to be hard to play again the next week, even though he really wanted to keep going. He’d only had two kicks, after all. He wasn’t playing as well as he wished he was and he hadn’t forgotten what Brett Deledio had told him not long after he got to the club: if you get a spot in the team, don’t give it up easily, because someone else will take it.

Nick tried to run on Thursday, but couldn’t. It really hurt. Before training on Saturday morning Hardwick told him not to worry, that he wasn’t going to play, that the coaches didn’t want to risk him. Then, half an hour later, the coach came back and told him to give it his best shot. “Stuff that,” Hardwick said. “If you can get through this, then we’ll play you.”

He did his best but it wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t until the middle of the next week that Nick felt as though he was running properly again, with no pain at all. By then, he had no idea whether he would be called straight back into the team, and reasons to think he wouldn’t be.

His place had been taken by Matthew Arnot who, after waiting almost two years to make his debut had played well against St Kilda, laying more tackles than anyone else in the team. By Thursday night Nick was relieved: he had his spot back, with Matt the unlucky one, sent back to the VFL for a little longer. He also felt slightly uncomfortable, though. He wished Matt hadn’t been dropped, and he knew his friend wasn’t happy about it. It felt like he was avoiding him, like Nick had almost stolen something from him. He felt worse after he had only a handful of possessions against North Melbourne, not really finding his way into the game at all.

“I didn’t want to miss out, I definitely didn’t. I was happy for Matty to get his debut but when you’re not in the team and the team wins you can’t really see why they would change it, so it makes you want to prove yourself and get back even more,” he said.

“It wasn’t fun. I felt bad for Matty because he played well, and then I came in and played bad. He’s a second-year player so he’s been training a lot longer than me and I sort of felt like I came in over the top of him and didn’t even have to go back to the VFL after my injury. He pretty much didn’t talk to me all week, so I don’t think he was too happy with me. It got better, and we’re friends, but it’s just competitive. You want everyone to go well but you also want to prove why you should be the one in the team.”

There are several annoying things about today’s trip to Torquay. It’s cold, it’s windy, the waves aren’t great and it’s the first time Nick has been able to get there in more than a month. His legs have been too sore to let his mind take the break it has been needing and there have been other things to do.

Williams likes to slot in unexpected activities, the senior players get the best massage and physio slots which means staying back late some days and there have been classes in first aid, public speaking, nutrition, finance and other things to attend, as part of the AFL Players Association’s induction program, while he figures out whether and what he wants to start studying next year. There’s not as much down time as Nick thought there would be, and that some of his friends seem to think still is.

But things are going well. He was nominated for the AFL’s Rising Star award after round seven when he got his first win, his first goal, his first chance to stand in the circle, sing the theme song and feel like he was really a part of the team.

He signed a contract extension a few weeks ago, having not even thought about whether he would be offered one so early on. His manager just called him one morning, said he had been made an offer, that the money looked good, and that was enough to satisfy Nick. The game plan still hadn’t stuck – not entirely – but he felt like the other players were looking for him a little more, trying to involve him, trusting him, getting a sense of what he could do and how he might be able to help them. Which was good.

“It’s still a bit weird to run out with them on the weekend, but during the week they feel more like normal people now. Before they were just stars, but now that I know what they do week to week they seem more like everyday people. It’s just hard if you want to hang out with them. When the senior blokes go out for coffee and they ask the young boys to go along, you don’t want to say no but it ends up costing 20 or 30 bucks. That’s heaps, especially for the guys on rookie contracts, but you don’t want to look stingy. And they do talk about different things. With them it’s all kids and books and TV shows. The young boys just want to talk about girls. Footy, and girls.”

Wednesday September 4

The Rising Star luncheon is the first in a very long month of chicken breasts and beef fillets. It’s finals time, function season, and if he’s honest, Nick doesn’t really want to be here. It’s his day off and he’d much rather be at home, resting up ahead of Sunday’s elimination final.

It’s an hour before the function starts and he’s at a media call in a room off to the side of the Crown Casino ballroom, surrounded by cameras and reporters wanting to know how fit his team is, whether it can beat Carlton after losing to the Blues just three weeks ago, how much he’s looking towards his first final, how lucky he feels considering so many of his teammates have waited so long to know what September feels like.

Richmond hasn’t played a final since 2001, when Nick was seven. Chris Newman has never played in one, and he’s played almost 250 games. “It sort of sinks in when Newy speaks, when he tells us about the opportunity we have,” said Nick who looked around at training yesterday and realised how many supporters were there watching, how long they’d been waiting for this.

“It’s a bit lost on me. It’s a bit wasted because I feel like I’ve just walked in. I haven’t had years of missing out. It’s hard to think what it would be like for the other guys who have been there their whole careers and not played one. You do sort of think, ‘12 years ...’ It’s a long time. I’m definitely lucky. I got here at the right time.”

Nick will play his 18th game on Sunday. He will definitely, absolutely play – he thinks. There’s just one small problem. He’s had a sore hamstring for weeks, in fact his entire body has hurt more and more after each game. He’s been spending more time on the bench, he’s had days where he’s had no motivation to train, when he has felt slow, tired and weak in the gym.

It used to hurt when he got out of bed in the morning, now it’s an effort to get off the couch at any time of day. Now he’s sore before training sessions start, rather than during them. Now his legs feel heavy during the pre-game warm-up, not the last quarter. He’s noticed that as teams have tired in the final few rounds the games have slowed up and players have been running less, meaning more hits, more corked muscles, more sore spots to try and ignore.

Against Essendon last Saturday night he didn’t feel like he had injured his hamstring, and he played the game out. But it felt tight again during training, from start to finish, so he thought he should let the physio know. He did, and suddenly there were people all over him: the first physio, a second one, the club doctor, the conditioning coach. They sent him to a clinic over the road for a scan, to make sure he hadn’t done any damage.

He’s sure he hasn’t. He hopes he hasn’t. “All I wanted was a massage to loosen it up. And from then on I was thinking, ‘Shit, I shouldn’t have said anything ...’ If the scan comes back bad I’m going to be really pissed off.”

His mind is tired, too. Around Richmond you would never know: Nick is as low-key off the field as he is determined and focused on it. Some weeks he knows he has made mistakes; he hasn’t needed anyone to tell him. Some weeks Williams has told him to not even bother watching the game back, to sit through vision of himself playing well instead, to think about all the good things he can do. But things are sinking in, becoming more instinctive with every match, and watching his edits back has helped. Sometimes, he realises he did the right thing without even thinking. Other times he will feel like he has played well then watch the video, see himself standing still, eyes fixed on the ball as his opponent sneaks around behind him and gets away.

“It happens every time you watch it. You pick up so many more things you did wrong. Choco’s good because if you do something wrong he’ll say, ‘I understand how it can go wrong; we’ve taken five minutes to decide what you should have done but on the field you have two seconds.’ He wants us to think about the positives more than the negatives. And it’s funny, how much more you do think about the negatives, unless someone tells you not to.”

There has been so much to learn, this season. And there’s still so many things that don’t feel natural, that he’s getting used to on the run. He has played 17 games in his first year, 17 good ones but still only 17. “I said to some of my mates, we pretty much have an exam every single weekend. The coaches are all watching you, then there’s the supporters, and the media. Everything gets seen. You can’t go and hide somewhere.”

Nick finishes sixth in the Rising Star count but his mind is on something else. Sunday. The finals. The finals. He wants to see how many people come to watch training on Saturday morning, how loud the MCG crowd gets, how the game feels different to the others he has played, how much harder and tougher and unforgiving it is.

Everywhere he goes people are wishing him luck, telling him how lucky he is, making it clear how long they have waited to see the team they love play in September again. He still doesn’t understand, not fully. But some things he doesn’t need to understand. He wants to win; he has only ever wanted to win no matter which team he has been playing for, and that hasn’t changed even though he’s the kid in this team, even though he could and should have years and years left to play.

“It’s going to be the biggest game in my life. It’s going to be the hardest game, the most competitive game. Things will happen that I haven’t been through before, I’d say. It’s like everything that’s happened up until now doesn’t really matter. I think I’m going to like it.”